


He Calls My Name

by Raufnir



Series: Older Gladnis Series [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Blind Character, Blind Ignis, Canonical Character Death, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gladio is still a shield, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Ignis is suffering, M/M, Older Ignis, PTSD, elements of magic, older gladio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 02:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10653234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raufnir/pseuds/Raufnir
Summary: Ignis wakes after yet another nightmare, but even Gladio isn't really able to reach him this time. And Ignis is hearing voices. One voice specifically. Is he losing his sanity, or is something else happening in Lucis? It's been around five years since Noctis sacrificed everything to bring back the light, but Ignis has never moved on from the loss of his king and his friend.Stand-alone oneshot, but also fitting within the series of older Gladio and Ignis one-shots.





	He Calls My Name

**Author's Note:**

> Anon Tumblr Request: "I read your Gladnis drabbles/oneshots on AO3 and I'm wondering if we could get some more of that? Like perhaps Ignis haivng a nightmare or something and Gladdy being all sweet. you said you wanted to set Prompto up with Cindy but if he loved Noct why would he be ok with that? Please thinnk about writing more becuase I loved that so much. I can't get enough of older Gladnis, and their babies are so cute and perfect! Thank you!!!"
> 
> So I kind of answered it, I think... I have plans for Prompto, so I've decided not to let Clara and Nox set him up with Prompto. Sorry if anyone who's been reading the series had been hoping for that... :/

_This one has an element of the supernatural about it. There’s also a fair bit of PTSD for Ignis._

 

He woke with a vague, wordless cry, jack-knifing upright, something trickling down his temples. Blood? The pain behind his eyeballs was excruciating, and he heard another whimper leave his lips while his chest pumped like bellows. No. Not blood. Sweat. His shaking fingertips graced over the deepest scar which engulfed his left eye completely.

The duvet rustled and the hand on his shoulder made him start. “Iggy?” Gladio’s sleepy voice rasped. “Hey, it was just a nightmare.”

“ _Just?_ ” Ignis hissed, surprising even himself with the venom in his tone.

“I know,” Gladio murmured, rubbing slow circles across Ignis’ shoulders. “I know.”

“No you don’t!” he snapped, flinging the covers off and levering his long, lean body out of the bed. The air was chilly, and gooseflesh rose across his sweat-soaked torso, but the endless blackness had become suffocating. “I can’t distinguish between my dreams and my memories anymore. I don’t know what I’ve seen, and what my mind is inventing.” He stood and stalked with slow, deliberate precision from the room, his hands finding the doorframe as he passed through it and left Gladio behind him. Again.

***

Panic began to rise in the former shield’s chest as he watched the man he loved more than sunlight leave the room in a cloud of his own sour hatred and fear. “Iggy,” he hissed, feeling salt tears prickling at his lashes. He bit his chapped lower lip hard, screwing his gigantic fists up in the sheets, the eagle tattoo across his chest flexing as his muscles moved, lungs working in vain to calm him down. His hair was long, falling past his shoulders now, and it wasn’t tied back. It tumbled forward as he lowered his face into his hands and finally, unexpectedly, he began to cry. It was half two in the morning, and Ignis was probably in the kitchen, making coffee. He wouldn’t come back to bed. Gladio would have to spend the rest of the night alone if he wanted to try and get any sleep, but he couldn’t face the cold sheets this time.

He threw the remainder of the duvet back off his still hugely-muscled legs, and padded barefoot through his family’s traditional home.

The wooden floors and a lifetime of training allowed him the silence of a shadow as he moved through the hallways, familiar to him from his earliest childhood. He stepped into the living room to find the huge French doors open, the soft, gauzy curtains flowing like cobwebs in the night breezes. The open doors framed the figure of his husband, who stood perfectly still on the patio outside, face tilted upwards towards the moon.

For a long time, Gladio just stood there, watching him. Ignis’ chest was bare, his lean shoulders and back like steel cable, twisted with daemon scars from the years of darkness while their prince – their _king_ – was inside the crystal, but his lower half was shrouded by the silk pyjamas he favoured. Gladio knew that his touch sensitivity had increased since losing his sight, and he couldn’t sleep in anything that felt scratchy against him. The cold night air had to be hell against his skin as he stood there. Gladio watched him shiver as if in answer.

He had been about to say something, to bring him back, when he heard Ignis whisper a name. “Noctis.”

Gladio’s heart fractured at the sound of it.

Ignis’ voice was thin and rasping. He knew the nightmares had been getting steadily worse, that he would wake shivering and sweating, shouting vague words, but that was the first time he had heard their dead king’s name on his lips in a very long time.

He knew how much he missed Noctis. Astrals above, Gladio missed him too, but no one, not even Prompto, had lived for Noctis the way Ignis had. His whole life had been dedicated to serving him. He had fulfilled, _lived_ , the roles of mother and father, brother, confidante, advisor, and best friend, with absolute devotion and dedication. Never once had he faltered, or quavered, or given up. Not even when the sight had been ripped from his eyes.

Gladio blinked, stepping involuntarily towards him as he watched Ignis’ shoulders begin to shake. With a horrible lurch in Gladio’s chest, he realised that Ignis was crying. In six enormous strides, he was across the room, but on the seventh stride, Ignis crumpled to the floor, his knees hitting the paving stones hard as he collapsed in a heap of shuddering, desperate sobs.

Gladio lunged forwards and wrapped his whole body around Ignis, sheltering him as best as he could manage, stroking his soft, grey hair back off his forehead with strong, kind hands. He didn’t say anything. There _were_ no words for the grief in Ignis’ chest.

Slowly, Ignis collapsed sideways into Gladio, allowing the former shield to buttress him up, and then he slid his arms around the great torso and nuzzled his scarred face into his equally scarred chest. Gulping and still crying, he gasped, “I can’t…”

“I’m here, I’m here,” he repeated, over and over. “I know. I’m here. I’m here.”

Ignis clawed at his bare chest, short nails raking over the tattooed feathers, scoring them red in the moonlight. “I can’t. I keep hearing his voice, Gladio. I’m…” he sucked in a huge, raw breath, and said, “I’m going mad.”

“You’re not mad,” he whispered, lips right against Ignis’ ear as he tried to force his own fears down. “You’re not mad.”

“Then why do I keep hearing him? Why is he calling my name?”

“You miss him. I dream about him too.”

“This is every night, every time I fall asleep, he’s there, waiting for me. It’s like in Zegnautus Keep when I heard him, but this time I can’t find him, I can’t see, I can’t get to him, but he’s still calling me. He’s calling my name. He’s reaching out for me and I can’t find him, I can’t…”

Gladio leaned back a fraction and placed a hand firmly over Ignis’ collarbones and pushed insistently. “Iggy,” he said, his voice stern but full of love. “Iggy, what you feel is completely understandable. You basically raised that kid. You raised him, but it’s not your fault you couldn’t stop it from happening. And it’s not your fault that Regis didn’t tell you. He was a good king, but I hate him for keeping that from you.”

Ignis shuddered again, still clinging to Gladio’s huge frame.

“Come on, come inside at least…” he murmured.

Breathing hard and silently for a moment, Ignis took some time to pull himself together. When he gave the barest of nods, Gladio stood and cupped his forearms in his hands, drawing him slowly and carefully to his feet. Ignis swayed, disorientated and emotional, and Gladio held him close. “I gotcha,” he smiled, pressing soft, warm kisses onto his forehead. “I’ve always got you.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Ignis muttered.

“Don’t be sorry,” Gladio breathed as he guided him back inside.

Crossing the threshold back into the house, Ignis suddenly froze.

“Iggy?”

***

Ignis couldn’t move a single muscle. He couldn’t breathe. It felt like his heart had stopped. When the sound came again, he jerked like he’d been electrocuted, and turned his head wildly, desperately searching for the source of the voice. He knew that voice. It called his name.

_Ignis._

“Noct?” Ignis managed to choke.

Gladio was frightened. He could hear it in his husband’s voice. “Iggy, come on…”

“It’s him!” he gasped in a half strangled cry. “It’s Noct.”

Ignis heard Gladio’s hair brushing against his skin as he looked around, looked back outside. “No one is there, Iggy. You’re tired, and emotional, come on, come back to me.”

“No!” he shouted, turning on the spot, shoving Gladio hard in the chest and barrelling out into the night again. “Noct?”

It had never happened when he was awake. His king was scared, reaching for him.

“Noct! I’m here. I can hear you!”

“Iggy!” it was Gladio again, and all Ignis wanted was for him to shut up so he could hear Noct better.

“You don’t hear him?” Ignis asked, heartbeat obliterating all the noises of the night. “Do you?”

His answer crushed all hope in Ignis’ chest. “No. I don’t.”

With a wordless cry, he swayed and then felt his knees go out from underneath him. “I’m going mad.” Strong hands caught him, but as vagueness swirled through his mind, blotting everything out, soaking all the sensation he had left up into nothingness, he heard that voice just one more time.

_I’m trying, Ignis. Help me. Help me, Iggy._

“Noct,” he breathed. “What do you need me to do?”

_Hold on. Hold on, Ignis._

With a sigh, he slumped into Gladio’s arms, exhausted, sweating, and feverish.

He didn’t hear Gladio’s voice, gruff with fear as he told him he loved him, or feel Gladio’s hands bear him back into the house and sponge at his scarred cheeks with a cool cloth, or his lips brush his own softly-parted lips.

When he woke the next morning, he found Gladio curled up tightly around him, as though he would shield him from the entire world with that beautiful body of his.

His breathing was even and deep, and Ignis laid a hand on his chest, feeling the close warmth of him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Gladio shifted, draping his heavy arm over Ignis again and drawing him right up against his body. “Love you,” he mumbled sleepily. “Love you, Ig.” And for a heartbeat or two he was quiet and still, until he added, “Don’t go. Don’t leave me.”

A wave of guilt and fear rushed through his arteries and he turned properly to face Gladio. He reached his hand up, searching for his cheek, and found first his scratchy jawline. He worked his fingers up the face he knew so well, tracing every scar and, now that they were older, the beginnings of crows-feet and laughter lines around his eyes and mouth. “I won’t leave you, my love,” he hissed. “I won’t ever leave you.”

With his thumb against the corner of his mouth, Ignis felt Gladio smile in his sleep, and traced a few loving circles over his cheeks before planting a kiss there too. Still fast asleep, Gladio twitched and put a hand behind Ignis’ head, pulling him closer yet, so that Ignis had his nose buried against the former shield’s massive collarbones. He inhaled. “Gladio,” he sighed. “Gladiolus.”

But in the background there was another name, whispered in another voice.

_Ignis._

 


End file.
